Socialism stepping forward in Britain and U.S

Celebrating his victory in a London pub Saturday night, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn joined supporters in singing the socialist anthem The Red Flag, abandoned under former leader Tony Blair as he steered the party to the centre.

Jeremy Corbyn proves that identifying as a socialist is not the political poison it once seemed. Saturday, Corbyn was elected leader of Britain's opposition Labour Party in a landslide victory.Kirsty Wigglesworth, The Associated Press / With files from The London Daily Telegraph

Celebrating his victory in a London pub Saturday night, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn joined supporters in singing the socialist anthem The Red Flag, abandoned under former leader Tony Blair as he steered the party to the centre.

With his landslide election as leader of Britain’s official opposition, Corbyn has shown that identifying as a socialist is not the political poison it once seemed. But he takes over a deeply divided party, and some of the flinching and sneering he sang about comes from within.

At least eight Labour MPs have said they would not serve in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, and his deputy leader, Tom Watson, distanced himself Sunday from Corbyn’s proposals for a NATO withdrawal and for nuclear disarmament.

Corbyn also supports the nationalization of energy and rail companies, and proponents of Blair’s centrist New Labour are horrified by the party’s sharp turn to the left. Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of New Labour, warned that the party now faces “the fight of its life to remain a viable party of government.”

While Corbyn will have to beat back internal dissent during the coming days, he received support from an unlikely quarter. Joining the left-wing governments of Argentina and Greece in saluting Corbyn’s victory was a contender for the United States presidency.

“At a time of mass income and wealth inequality throughout the world, I am delighted to see that the British Labour Party has elected Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader,” U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders told the Huffington Post. “We need leadership in every country in the world which tells the billionaire class that they cannot have it all.”

Sanders, who is also proud to call himself a socialist, has been enjoying surprising popularity as he battles Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, and observers have drawn parallels between his success and Corbyn’s.

“Like Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential race, Mr. Corbyn has electrified disenchanted young voters, leading to a surge in support for his antiquated brand of socialism,” Ian Birrell, a former speech writer for British Prime Minister David Cameron, wrote this month in the Wall Street Journal. “New members have flocked to join the party, while his rallies overflow with fans enthralled by his ‘authenticity.’ ” Admittedly, Sanders’s brand of socialism – calling for universal state health care, free higher education, publicly funded elections and the breakup of big banks – seems tame in comparison with Corbyn’s. But on the American political spectrum it is no less radical.

Yet the latest CBS/YouGov poll shows Sanders leading Clinton by double digits among likely Democratic voters in both Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states that will cast votes for the nominee in 2016.

Richard Wolff, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, told Voice of America that younger Americans who were born after the Cold War are not turned off by the socialist label.

“Those battles are now two or three decades old. For young people, this is barely known history,” he said. A Gallup poll published last June found that only 47 per cent of Americans would be willing to vote for a socialist candidate, but among respondents under 30 the figure rose to 69 per cent.

Sanders remains a long shot to win the nomination, but he could succeed in forcing the party to the left. “After years of Republicans complaining about Barack Obama being a ‘socialist,’ Sanders is making clear just how moderate the incumbent administration is,” Rutgers University historian David Greenberg wrote on Politico.

There are no signs the trans-Atlantic resurgence of socialism is touching Canada, even if the New Democratic Party is ahead in polls leading up to the Oct. 19 election. The NDP’s forerunner, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, dedicated itself to eradicating capitalism when it was founded in 1933. But today, under leader Tom Mulcair, the party has moved so far to the centre that the Liberals are laying claim to the left.

Mulcair, who came to the NDP from the Quebec Liberals, pushed to have all references to socialism removed from the NDP’s constitution in 2013. And in this campaign, it is the Liberals who are proposing deficit spending to boost the Canadian economy. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau even sought last week to claim the mantle of CCF founder Tommy Douglas as he accused Mulcair of aping Conservative budget austerity.

“Canadians are smart enough to do the math,” Trudeau said. “They know you can’t be Tommy Douglas on Stephen Harper’s budget.”

Voters will determine whether the surprising embrace by British Labour and U.S. Democrats of socialist candidates can translate into broader electoral success, or whether it is the kiss of death many predict.

In Canada, the NDP has opted for the centrist path abandoned by Labour, and should the NDP win the only red flag Mulcair will be singing about is the one with a Maple Leaf in the centre.

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